Scientists at the University of Sydney, the University of Tokyo, and the Australian National University say they have built the world’s largest quantum circuitboard. The quantum circuitboard unifies 10,000 quantum systems in a single component, marking a threefold increase in magnitude over the closest competing design. “The scalability afforded by transistors enabled the explosion in computing technology we’ve seen in the last 65 years,” says the University of Sydney’s Nicolas Menicucci. “Similarly, this breakthrough promises scalable design of laser-light quantum computing hardware.” Real-world quantum computers would enable scientists to solve challenging computational quandaries that are beyond the power of today’s supercomputers. “Huge advances in telecommunications, physics, and counterintelligence are possible when we have devices with such immense computational power,” Menicucci says, noting that precise control of tiny quantum systems and scalability are the two main obstacles to working quantum computers. “We have made a breakthrough in scalability for the basic ‘circuitboard’ of a quantum computer made out of laser light,” Menicucci says. He says additional progress toward precise control of quantum systems will be necessary to leverage this scalability breakthrough.